


Lifeline

by Mangacat



Category: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
Genre: Anxiety, Dom/sub, Episode: s02e22 Born to Run, F/M, Non-Sexual Bondage, Other, Post canon, Post-Apocalypse, Post-Judgement Day, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rope Bondage, Shibari, sub space
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-05
Updated: 2020-01-05
Packaged: 2021-02-27 03:35:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22130410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mangacat/pseuds/Mangacat
Summary: There is no one in the world John can trust to do this. Only she can....Or – the non-sexual bondage one absolutely nobody asked for (please note the tags).
Relationships: John Connor & Cameron Phillips
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7





	Lifeline

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hunters_retreat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hunters_retreat/gifts).



> I did absolutely cursory research on shibari, which is a fascinating, complicated and very sophisticated BDSM discipline, so I hope I’m not committing gross malpractice in my imagination, if I do, please let me know, otherwise, enjoy!   
> Also writing this, I’d just finished my third rewatch of the show and I have no idea where this came from, since I’ve never felt the need to write in this fandom, (and likely won't again) but here it is.   
> @hunters_retreat: my dear, you're the only person I actually know who's in this fandom so this is my very selfish gift to you, crying for attention *g* (and also yours inspired this part of the way, so thanks on that count as well).

John stands at the table, surrounded by his lieutenants and in front of a haul of strategic maps they’ve captured in the last raid, when it starts up again.   
He doesn’t have time for it and it’s early; the intervals are getting noticeably shorter.  
But he never has had time enough for anything in his life, ironically, and the incessant, growing buzz in his ears, the hands that want to cramp into claws so he has to consciously relax them to keep the muscle tremors from shaking up his arms – they tell him that he will make time, and soon. 

He feels Derek’s keen eyes on him, the familiar unfamiliarity, almost enough to make him shudder and with the image of the other Derek, his Derek, crowding into his mind, lifeless and still, the buzzing gets louder. He knows his uncle has noticed, notices, and so far he hasn’t said anything to the new leader, who can smell enemy stations a mile away, who can pinpoint strategic targets before they’re on anyone’s radar and talk to metal without getting killed. But it’s not long before he will and then John needs to be ready with an answer.   
It’s a play for another day though.   
First, he needs to get out of here.

John looks around at everyone, their faces as drawn and grimy as his own and his eyes fall into the far corner, a glimpse of lit up irises and he knows she’s there and has noticed as well. It shores up the buzzing for a little while, the knowledge that he’ll be able to get what he needs soon and it sharpens his focus enough so he can get through the planning of another couple of assaults before adjourning the meeting with a reasonable result. 

He claps Bedell on the shoulder and throws a dismissive wave at Derek when he makes to go after John. It still throws him sometimes how he can give an order and … people just follow. John feels barely contained inside his own body as he walks towards his private quarters – one of the very few luxuries afforded to him these days – only kept together by the reassurance of silent steps in his wake. He knows he should not so openly rely on her presence, the appearance of her private counsel – or fraternization, depending on what scandalizes you most. It breeds the kind of unrest in the past that’ll just come to bite him in the future.   
But there is no one else in the world he can trust to do this. 

The outer shell, the inconceivable charisma of John Connor depends on his strength and ability to project it over the core of a scared, scarred, impossibly young man. And the fate of the world in turn depends on everyone, metal and flesh, believing in it.   
They cannot ever see him fearful, untethered, witless, and out of his depth.   
So he isn’t.   
He packs everything away that the outside cannot witness, keeps it tugged away at the bottom of the box, along with hope. Until it breathes and grows and starts to shake his mind apart. 

When he closes the door to his room – out of sight, but not necessarily out of earshot – she is somehow already there, watching, waiting. He leans against the door for a moment, ringing with himself, loathing the fact that he needs this, needs her to do this and trying as always to think of another way. But there is no other remedy to quiet the clamour inside his head, no other slice of peace, no matter how thin, to be had in this world that always hisses and clangs and groans around them, no matter how deep they scurry underground. 

He pushes his shoulders back into the door, propelling himself forward into the centre of the room with a couple of sure footed steps. John waits for her, holding her expressionless gaze, daring her to come to him, to make him, to speak. 

They’ve never talked about this explicitly past the first couple of times, when she came to him, first with the assertion that he couldn’t go on and then the suggestion of a solution. He hadn’t believed it had a snowball’s chance in hell of helping; tying up the fraying strands of his consciousness, holding him together inside, but sometimes putting the outside up as a mirror to reflect on the inside is all that is needed. 

She watches the shivers travel through his limbs, coolly assesses his body that has been through so much, and yet so little, compared to the number of years he has technically existed. Finally, she steps forward with a small huff, one of those indescribably human things she does that fool even him sometimes and laces her fingers under the hem of his shirt, where they brush cool and firm against the skin of his abdomen. He can feel the metal underneath, even though he can’t. 

The drag of fabric on skin when she draws his shirt up is electrifying and as he lifts his arms over his head, the familiar ritual already creeps past the jitters, calm washing up along the edges of his firebrand mind. She folds up his shirt neatly, precise, making him wait, gooseflesh breaking out over his arms and torso both from the chill in the bunker as well as anticipation. She looks him square in this eye and then without warning, spins him around. The hair on the back of his neck stands on end, body too keyed up in a fight of flight response to comfortably bear the predator at his back. 

His trust in her is unquestionable, written in his bones and blood, yet, it means also playing with fire.   
He lets it happen, lets his shoulders drop into the whispering caress of her fingers that brush up from beneath his shoulder blades, over the sockets of his arms and down again to his elbows until she hooks her thumbs into the joints and guides his forearms up against each other, palms pressed against skin and fingers touching elbows. 

She draws his arms up and out a little, putting just enough tension on the joints to feel it without being uncomfortable. He lets her manipulate his position to her whim, legs settling into parade rest. His pulse thunders loud in his ears, blood pressing against the delicate tissue inside and with the quiet swish of a rope through fingers of metal and flesh, the calm breaks against the boundaries of his mind, flooding the parts that are most unquiet. 

He feels the rope loop over the fingers of his right hand, pressing them into the pulse-point at his elbow. The running end is twisted into a knot, pulled against his skin by deft fingers that are able to calculate exactly how tight it can go without cutting off circulation too much. The fingers measure two inches along his arms, loop the rope again over and under the lead, securing a second knot, then a third two inches further and with every length of his freedom, his choice of movement taken away, his heartbeat slows and stillness rolls further into this mind. The first double length of rope ends precisely with the last knot coming to rest over the fingers of his left hand. She tugs at the middle to ensure the tie has as little and as much give as she wants it to and all the air shudders out of his lungs at once. 

She walks around him with firm, measured steps, the fingers of one hand never leaving his skin. Sliding up his back, around his arm and down his chest until her palm is splayed fully over his left pectoral. He waits until the burn in his lungs becomes too much, the instinct to breath overpowering all higher brain functions. Watches her watch his chest expand underneath her hand. 

She is the only on the world who can do this to him, make sure he goes under far, just far enough.   
No pressure, no rush, no judgement, just him letting go as he needs to.   
She is also the only one with the ability to set him loose at a moment’s notice, should the need arise; if they’re hit – which suspiciously hasn’t happened yet since they’ve started doing this, so one of these days, they’re due for a big one. 

Such considerations, however, are for the general, the leader of the resistance and he’s not here for that.   
He is here for the quiet, for the thoughts to recede and leave him a moment’s peace, even if it is as fleeting as mere seconds ticking by.   
She tilts her head, searching his eyes as if she can tell the musings in his mind, tell that he isn’t as far down as to be untouched by them. Yet. 

Another length of rope slips on his skin, behind his back, sitting right on top of his hipbones; four strands in one direction, braided through a loop over his abdomen, riding just above his low-slung cargo pants. She pulls the first knot tight so it sits snugly under his navel, guiding the strands upwards along the trail of hair on his stomach, before she twists the strands into a second knot a hand width up. Another hand span up, the third knot lies over his sternum, while the forth comes to rest right under the dip of his collarbones. This is the spot where she parts the strands two and two, running them between pointer and middle finger while she brushes her hands over his shoulders on either side, to settle the ropes against the juncture of his neck. 

He follows her gaze as far as his head will turn as she completes the full circle to stand behind him again. He looks straight ahead again, relying completely on the sensation of touch to follow her movements. He knows exactly what she is doing, even though he has never seen it – there are no mirrors in this place. He feels nevertheless how she guides the strands back together right between his shoulder blades. 

The swish and slide of the rope over his spine tells him of three more knots down; they mirror the one’s in front – at precisely the same height, because that is who she is. He takes a deep breath when her fingertips tug up the tie around his arms to pull the running ends through the space between his arms and the rope binding them, threading them outward on either side, two and two, connecting the ties. He moves his arms slightly to relieve some of the burn that has started to creep into this muscles there and test the tug of the rope against his neck, when a flat palm pressed between his shoulder blades stills him. 

She doesn’t speak, and yet the silent reprimand is enough to spread tingles all over along the lengths of rope binding him, body swaying into the touch, while his muscles relax into languor, eyes slipping halfway shut. Through the haze, he feels her step closer, pressed chest to back as her hands lead the strands around his waist to thread them through the space between the first two knots, tugging the stem outward into a diamond shape, the urge to fight or flee recedes into the farthest corner of his mind. 

Back again the leads go to do the same to the length at the dip of his spine, rope sliding between middle and forefingers like water. His focus is singularly turned on her movements, the second pass to the front that tickles his flanks, pebbling the skin and making him want to laugh, because the sensation is just so out of _this_ world. He keeps it inside, letting the endorphins flood his blood, while his mind goes almost quiet. 

There is no space for her hands anymore underneath his arms for a third pass, so that that one goes over his biceps, the muscles hard and wiry from life after Judgement Day. He hisses slightly when the course fabric of the rope slides over his nipples and watches as her deft fingers pull both running ends through the highest gap, tugging the stem apart into the another diamond, pressing the top knot right into the dip of his throat. She guides the running ends up then, over his shoulder joints and back down, finally fastening the end of the rope into the topmost knot on his back. 

He should feel caged, trussed up and vulnerable, his body knows to rebel against shackles and bonds with utmost prejudice, yet he feels centred and clear, free, without the constant noise inside his head. No decisions, no war, no past, no future, just this very moment in time, bound with a couple dozen feet of rope. 

She stalks around him once more with that particular, back-heeled gait of hers, trailing her fingers over the tied shapes, assessing her handiwork. 

Their eyes meet fleetingly, but she doesn’t otherwise acknowledge him, completing her turn to the back once more. He feels her fingers lace into the knot between his shoulder blades, thick with all the interwoven strands – the nexus of his surrender. 

Her hand stills there, quietly giving him time to indicate that he doesn’t want to go any further.   
It’s almost enough, the liquid calm settling into his body, clouding his mind with the sensation of floating warmth.   
But it isn’t, so he doesn’t.   
He just waits for her to make the next move, caught in the space between one second and the next. 

Without further warning, she closes her fist tight and turns it, tension flying along the lengths of rope, pressing into his chest, tugging at his arms, pulling tight against his carotid arteries. 

She caught him right on the exhale and his head goes light, legs buckling like a someone’s cut the strings and his knees hit the ground before he even realizes he’s moving. He gasps for breath against the obstruction of his throat, once, twice, head thrown back and eyes unseeing, as his universe constricts into the size of a pinprick. 

It’s one more beat and a half before she lets go, letting the knot slip back into place slowly and the air rushing into his lungs, pressing outwards into the ever-present boundaries of the bindings, filling his blood with a rush of oxygen that floods his senses, lights up his brain with possible futures, pathways and plans no one else can see, before the crescendo ends and white bright stillness enters his mind once more. 

Far, far up, where it barely reaches him, there is the sensation of fingers sliding into his hair from the nape of his neck, brushing over his scalp until his body burns with the untamed intimacy of it.  
A voice whispers into his ear:  
“Rest, John,… rest.”  
From there, he drifts. 

Fin


End file.
